Register For The Modern Marketing Expo Now

September 8, 2026

The marketing, branding and graphics industry is changing rapidly and agencies and businesses need to keep up with innovations and trends. Supercharge your offerings with the latest branding and marketing technologies demonstrated live at the Modern Marketing Johannesburg expo. The event is taking place 8-10 September at the Gallagher Convention Centre, Johannesburg.

Speak to experts about solutions that will open new markets as well as increase consumer engagement, brand awareness and profits.

See opportunities and solutions in:

– Branding, advertising and media.
– Promotional products and branded apparel.
– AI design and content technologies.
– Marketing technology.
– Signage, displays and visual communications.
– Print and production technologies.
– Digital experience and engagement.
– Retail and shopper marketing.

Supercharge Your Marketing At The Modern Marketing Power Hour

Industry leaders will share their expertise and insights in the ever-evolving field of marketing at the free-to-attend Modern Marketing Power Hour, taking place in Hall 3 at Gallagher Convention Centre.

Please register online for free attendance to the Modern Marketing Expo, taking place 8-10 September, 9am-5pm at Gallagher Convention Centre. The event is co-located with: Sign Africa, FESPA Africa, Africa Print and Graphics, Print and Sign expos.

MODERN MARKETING EXPO
+27 11 568 1894
https://modernmarketingexpo.co.za

Sign Your Clan Campaign Puts Deaf South Africans At The Heart Of Cultural Heritage

Modern Marketing

September 8, 2026

When South Africa recognised South African Sign Language (SASL) as its 12th official language, it marked a historic step towards inclusion. Now, Castle Milk Stout builds on that milestone with Sign Your Clan, a new campaign creating what are believed to be the world’s first formally recognised sign language representations of traditional African clan names.

Sign Your Clan brings SA Sign Language, African heritage and linguistic innovation together, creating a more inclusive way for more than 4 million Deaf and hard-of-hearing South Africans to connect with their cultural identity and heritage.

Rather than translating existing language, the campaign creates new signs for clan identities that have historically been expressed primarily through spoken or written language.

Language As Culture, Not Translation

Clan names carry deep significance across South African cultures, representing lineage, ancestry and belonging. Yet many had no established signs within SASL.

Castle Milk Stout worked with SASL specialist, educator and Hands-On Creatives founder Mmatlou Moloto, to develop seven clan signs. The signs were vetted and approved by the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), formally integrating them into South Africa’s linguistic framework.

‘Language is far more than communication; it is an expression of who we are, where we come from and where we belong,’ said Moloto.

‘SASL becoming our 12th official language was a historic step, but language is living and continues to evolve. Sign Your Clan demonstrates how language, culture and identity can come together to create greater inclusion and participation.’

From Campaign Idea To Cultural Practice

Sign Your Clan was taken beyond traditional advertising and into a real cultural setting through the traditional wedding of a Deaf couple, where the newly developed Zulu clan sign was incorporated into the celebration and family gift exchange.

The wedding also featured calabash, blanket and reed mat designs inspired by various cultural motifs and African heritage, alongside hands and clan totems, bringing the language innovation into a lived cultural experience.

For Castle Milk Stout, this campaign extends its longstanding connection to African culture into a contemporary context.

A New Model For Brand-Led Inclusion

Rather than simply adapting existing communication for accessibility, Sign Your Clan contributes to language development itself, shifting the conversation from representation towards participation.

‘Castle Milk Stout has always celebrated richness in flavour, culture and identity,’ said Thomas Lawrence, Brand Director at South African Breweries.

‘Helping expand South African Sign Language through clan names allows us to honour heritage while making it more accessible and shareable across communities.’

Why It Matters

For marketing and advertising, Sign Your Clan demonstrates how a brand can contribute to moving communities forward with something tangible to culture and African heritage.

By creating new clan signs that have been formally approved and can continue to evolve, the campaign has the potential to live beyond the advertising itself, turning a brand idea into a lasting cultural contribution.

To learn, sign and share your clan, watch video here or visit Sign Your Clan.

SIGN YOUR CLAN
https://www.castlemilkstout.co.za/signyourclan

Building The Foundation For A Robust Radio Currency

Modern Marketing

September 8, 2026

Building The Foundation For A Robust Radio Currency

The Broadcast Research Council of South Africa’s (BRC) chief role is to commission and oversee the delivery of radio and television audience measurement research for broadcasters and the advertising and marketing industry. The BRC has issued an update on the progress of its new Radio Audience Measurement Survey (RAMS), as the programme moves towards completion of its first full annual reporting sample. The survey has now passed 29 000 respondents as Wave 4 fieldwork nears completion, marking a key milestone towards the country’s next radio trading currency.

Following the successful completion of the first three waves of fieldwork, RAMS has achieved a cumulative sample of 29,380 respondents, exceeding the three-wave target of 27 000. This means that more than 75% of the designed annual reporting sample of 36 000 respondents has already been completed.

Wave 4 fieldwork is currently under way and is expected to conclude at the end of September 2026. Its completion will mark an important milestone for the new measurement system, providing the first complete annual sample on which the new RAMS currency has been designed.

The new RAMS was commissioned by the BRC to establish a robust, independent and future-focused radio audience measurement currency for South Africa. GfK, an NIQ company, was appointed by the BRC to design and deliver the new service, bringing established audience measurement expertise and experience from markets internationally.

The study has been designed around a large national sample of 36 000 respondents per annum, providing the scale required to measure South Africa’s diverse radio market across demographic groups, provinces and geographic areas.

The first three waves of RAMS fieldwork were conducted by GfK between September and November 2025, January and March 2026, and April and June 2026 respectively.

Importantly, the sample has continued to strengthen as successive waves have been added, with improvements in representation among demographic groups that required additional sample development, including white respondents, males and people aged 55 and older.

The RAMS sample is deliberately disproportionate across metropolitan, urban and rural areas to ensure sufficient sample sizes for meaningful analysis within different population groups. The resulting data is then weighted to restore the correct population proportions and ensure that the final outputs are representative of the South African population.

A Picture of South Africa

Beyond its role in measuring radio audiences, the scale of RAMS provides a detailed view of South Africa’s population aged 15 and older.

The RAMS universe currently represents approximately 45.3 million South Africans aged 15+. Of this population:

– 49% are male and 51% female
– 22.4% are aged 15–24
– 23.2% are aged 25–34
– 21.8% are aged 35–44
– 13.9% are aged 45–54
– 9.6% are aged 55–64
– 9.0% are aged 65+

The population is also geographically diverse. Gauteng represents approximately 26.7% of the 15+ population, followed by KwaZulu-Natal at 18.9%, the Western Cape at 12.8% and the Eastern Cape at 10.8%. Limpopo accounts for 9.4%, Mpumalanga 8.0%, North West 6.5%, Free State 4.8% and Northern Cape 2.1%.

This data set gives media planners, agencies and advertisers a current, evidence-based view of the South African population that extends beyond radio listening alone.

Designed For South Africa

RAMS uses a combination of face-to-face recruitment and digital data collection to ensure that different parts of the South African population can participate in the study. Across the first three waves, 85.3% of diaries were placed face-to-face, while 14.7% were placed through online panels.

This blended approach is important in a market as diverse as South Africa, where levels of connectivity and digital participation differ considerably across geographic and demographic groups.

The methodology is supported by a comprehensive weighting framework designed to account for the disproportionate sample design and ensure that the final data reflects the underlying population.

From Rebuilding To Currency

The completion of Wave 4 represents more than another fieldwork milestone. It will complete the first full annual sample for the new RAMS and provide the industry with the depth of data required for the next stage of the currency’s development.

BRC’s CEO Gary Whitaker said the progress represents an important milestone for South Africa’s radio industry.

‘When we embarked on the new RAMS, our objective was not simply to replace the previous survey. We wanted to build a radio measurement currency that reflects South Africa today and provides the scale, methodological rigour and stability required by broadcasters, agencies and advertisers,’ said Whitaker.

‘With almost 30 000 respondents already represented across the first three waves, we are now approaching the completion of the first full annual sample. That is an important milestone, not only for the BRC but for the entire radio and advertising industry.

‘The focus throughout this process has been on getting the foundations right. A trading currency carries a significant responsibility, and it is important that the industry can have confidence in the methodology, the sample and the governance behind the numbers,’ Whitaker added.

What Happens Next

The BRC will provide further information on the RAMS release programme following completion and validation of Wave 4. This will include confirmation of the timeline for the next stage of reporting, building on the methodological review process the BRC has followed throughout the RAMS development.

No radio audience, listening or station-level data is being released as part of this update. The purpose of this communication is to provide the market with an update on the progress of RAMS and the development of the population and sample foundation underpinning the new currency.

The BRC thanks broadcasters, media agencies, advertisers and research partners for their continued engagement and support as RAMS is established to the highest standards of audience measurement governance and technical rigour.

BRC
https://brcsa.org.za/

Ornico Strengthens Leadership With New Appointment

Modern Marketing

September 7, 2026

Ornico Strengthens Leadership With New Appointment — Hopolang Mothibeli, Ornico.

Ornico, an African brand intelligence company, has appointed Hopolang Mothibeli as Commercial Director: Strategic Partnerships and Market Intelligence, strengthening its leadership across advertising intelligence, media research and ad-spend analysis.

Mothibeli joins Ornico from AGB Nielsen Media Research South Africa, where she served as Associate Director and Commercial Lead. She played a leading role in Nielsen’s advertising intelligence offering, working with agencies, advertisers, broadcasters, media owners and other industry stakeholders to interpret advertising activity, identify ad-spend patterns and extract greater value from market data.

Her appointment comes as the industry’s need for dependable advertising intelligence becomes increasingly important. Agencies need to benchmark investment, advertisers need to understand competitor activity, and media owners need visibility into the categories and brands driving the market.

Ornico intends to help provide that continuity while developing advertising-intelligence capabilities that reflect South African market realities and international best practice.

‘We’ve been in the ad-spend game for over two decades, but the arrival of Hopolang Mothibeli still feels like a massive win for us. She’s a veteran who truly ‘gets’ the perspective of both broadcasters and agencies. After years of collaborating on industry councils, I know her experience is second to none, but it’s her commitment to the industry’s growth that makes this partnership so exciting. Welcome to the team, Hopolang,’ said Oresti Patricios, CEO of Ornico.

Mothibeli brings more than 15 years of experience in business development, account management and media research, including nine years focused specifically on media research and measurement.

Her expertise spans advertising intelligence, ad-spend analysis, audience measurement and custom media research. She has developed and commercialised data-led solutions, managed strategic industry relationships and supported clients across retail, automotive, telecommunications, FMCG and financial services.

In her role as Commercial Director: Strategic Partnerships and Market Intelligence, Mothibeli will spearhead Ornico’s next phase of commercial growth during a pivotal transition for the local landscape. As traditional legacy providers move out of the South African market, a significant gap has emerged for dependable, locally-rooted data. Mothibeli will lead the charge in filling this void, deepening relationships with key clients and industry partners while evolving Ornico’s intelligence capabilities to ensure the industry retains the continuity and precision it requires to navigate this new chapter.

‘I am inspired by Ornico’s mission to provide an All-in-One brand and reputation management solution, offering both advertising and media monitoring, and I am excited to lead Ornico into the era of comprehensive advertising intelligence services with global taxonomy standards,’ sayid Mothibeli.

Mothibeli holds a Master of Management degree in Strategic Marketing from Wits Business School and an Honours degree in Strategic Brand Communication from Vega School. She is also a member of the IAB South Africa Research and Measurement Council, where she contributes to industry discussions around research, data and measurement. Her appointment is an early indication of Ornico’s broader ambitions in advertising intelligence, with further developments to be announced in due course.

ORNICO
https://ornico.co

Publicis Groupe Africa Announces New Head Of Influential

Modern Marketing

September 7, 2026

Publicis Groupe Africa Appoints Jarred Trembath To Lead Influential — Jarred Trembath, Publicis Groupe Africa.

Influencer marketing is now one of the fastest-growing media channels globally. As marketing investment faces greater scrutiny, brands need influencer marketing to deliver measurable business outcomes, not just content and engagement. Publicis Groupe Africa has appointed Jarred Trembath as Head of Influential, Sub-Saharan Africa, to lead the growth and evolution of the group’s integrated creator marketing capability across the region.

Trembath brings 15 years of EMEA experience in paid media, performance marketing, creator marketing and leadership and continues to lead the group’s Performance B2B and Affiliate Marketing capabilities.

The industry is shifting from creators, followers, reach and organic campaigns toward audience intelligence, AI-powered planning, paid media integration, commerce and measurable business outcomes.

Influential is a capability within Publicis Groupe Africa’s broader Connected Media proposition, combining AI-powered audience intelligence, ConnectedID deterministic identity, first-party data and cross-channel measurement. The real differentiator is how creator marketing connects to AI, audience intelligence, identity, data, media and measurement within the Publicis ecosystem. Publicis starts with audience identity and data, identifying the communities that shape behaviour, then the creators who authentically influence them.

Ashish Williams, Senior Vice President Media said, ‘Creator marketing is evolving from a standalone communications channel into a measurable growth driver powered by data, technology and intelligence. At Publicis Groupe Africa, we are focused on integrating creator capabilities within our broader Connected Media ecosystem, enabling brands to connect creativity, audience intelligence, commerce and measurement in a way that delivers meaningful business outcomes. Jarred’s appointment reflects our commitment to building future-fit capabilities that help our clients navigate this evolving landscape with greater precision and impact.’

Jarred Trembath, Head of Influential SSA said, ‘The creator economy has matured beyond a content-led discipline. We are entering an era where influencer marketing is becoming one of the most accountable and intelligent media channels in the marketing mix.’

‘At Publicis Groupe Africa, we are redefining how brands connect with people by combining AI, audience intelligence, data and tech and creator expertise within a single integrated ecosystem. This enables us to identify the creators who genuinely influence culture and connect those relationships to measurable business outcomes. The future of influencer marketing will be defined by who can connect intelligence, media and creativity to drive real business growth.’

PUBLICIS GROUPE AFRICA
https://publicisgroupeafrica.com/

Nostalgia Gives Memory A Present-Day Role

Modern Marketing

September 7, 2026

Nostalgia Is A Powerful Commerce Lever — Bonita Christie, Digitas.

Bonita Christi, Business Unit Director at Digitas writes that the most interesting thing about nostalgia in marketing right now is how quickly the past is being turned into something people can book, buy, wear, watch, collect and share.

Hannah Montana returns not as a rerun, but as merchandise, content, collaborations and fan experiences. Clinique brings back Chubby Sticks and turns a familiar beauty product into a fresh moment of colour and play. None of this is accidental. And none of it is really about the past. This is how brands are using familiarity to reduce the distance between attention and action.

Nostalgia has typically been treated as emotion, a warm layer applied to a campaign to make people feel something familiar. That framing undersells what is actually happening. Nostalgia is increasingly functioning as a trust shortcut, reducing the friction people feel before they engage and buy. In a market shaped by economic anxiety, algorithmic fatigue, cultural fragmentation and constant change, familiarity is commercially useful.

This is why nostalgia is no longer limited to people remembering their own past. Adults are buying back childhood products. Gen Z is romanticising eras it never lived through. Retro aesthetics are resurfacing across fashion, beauty, entertainment, packaging and social media, often reinterpreted rather than reproduced. In each case, the familiar cue is doing real work in the decision-making process. It helps a brand feel recognisable before it has to explain itself.

At its strongest, nostalgia offers a fixed point in a market that will not stop moving. Brands that can provide that fixed point are finding that it changes how people engage with them and how quickly they move from interest to purchase.

From Feeling To Transaction

For most of its history, nostalgia lived in brand-building. A well-made ad could take people back to a moment and leave them with a warm feeling. What has changed is that consumers no longer want only to remember a moment. Increasingly, they want to step back inside it. Once a brand can offer that, nostalgia stops sitting quietly in brand perception and starts actively shaping the purchase journey. It reduces hesitation at the point where people are deciding whether to engage.

That is where it becomes commercially interesting. The most effective nostalgia today does not simply remind people of something they once loved. It gives that memory a present-day role: something to book, buy, wear, watch, collect, share or experience.

When Brands Get It Right

The clearest signal that nostalgia has moved from sentiment to strategy is not a single campaign. It is a pattern. Brands across categories identifying what their audience once loved, translating that emotional territory into something participatory and building a clear commercial path around it. The memory becomes the entry point. The experience, the product, the collaboration or the event becomes the reason to act.

What these activations share is architecture. Recognition is the hook, but it is never the whole offer. The most effective work makes nostalgia immersive and transactional, something people can step inside, buy into and share rather than leaving it as a passive feeling that fades once the campaign ends.

The Trap

Many brands experimenting with nostalgia make the same mistake. They bring back the look, the old logo, the familiar packaging, the retro colour palette, the jingle people remember. They do not build the commercial architecture around it. There is no urgency or participation. No clear path from the emotional hook to checkout. The result is content that is liked, shared and forgotten.

The brands seeing real returns treat nostalgia as a designed system. They identify what people loved in the first place, translate that feeling into something relevant now and make it easy for consumers to act on it.

The Asset In The Archive

For any brand with real history, nostalgia is one of the most underused assets available. It is already sitting in the archive in the form of old products, packaging, campaigns, characters, rituals, slogans, sounds and design codes. The opportunity is to reinterpret the past.

Consumers can tell the difference between a revival that simply repeats what came before and one that understands why it mattered. The most effective nostalgia revives the values that made people care in the first place, then gives those values new relevance.

It is also a trust play. In a landscape crowded with newness, speed and short-lived trends, familiar brands and stories offer reassurance. They feel known and easier to choose.

The Opportunity

The question for any brand sitting on heritage and history is not whether nostalgia has commercial value, but whether the right architecture exists to release it. The connected experiences, the participation mechanics, the routes from emotional recognition to transaction that turn a nostalgic asset into a genuine growth lever.

The archive is not a vault of old ideas. It is a live commercial asset. Nostalgia is not just a moment of recognition; it is a catalyst for relevance, connection and growth.

DIGITAS LIQUORICE
https://liquorice.co.za

Bookmark Awards’ Marketer Of The Year Sets A Benchmark For The Wider Industry

Modern Marketing

September 7, 2026

Happy Friday M — Andrea Quaye, Publicis Groupe Africa .

Andrea Quaye from Publicis Groupe Africa was recently named Marketer of the Year at this year’s Bookmark Awards. The win recognises here leadership and her contribution to advancing marketing excellence, innovation and industry growth across Africa.

Quaye has spent her career championing digital-first marketing, from Carling Black Label’s ‘Be the Coach’ to more recent work including HEINEKEN’s ‘Social Screens’ and Savanna’s ‘Try January.’

After serving as Global Vice President for the Coffee Category at Coca-Cola in Ireland, she returned home to join HEINEKEN Beverages as CMO in late 2024, tasked with aligning the business post the Distell acquisition and driving digital transformation across the group’s marketing delivery. Her insistence that every plan pair creativity with a digital-first focus has given agency partners a clear mandate: digitally integrated, creatively effective work.

That approach shows up across the portfolio, from a data-reactive billboard mirroring Max Verstappen’s race-day speed at the Dakar rally, to a Returnable Star Bottle initiative using QR codes and WhatsApp to reward consumers, driving the return of more than four million bottles. It also underpins campaigns for Windhoek, Bernini, Amstel, J.C. Le Roux and Savanna, each built on digitally led ecosystems that turn ideas into participation at scale.

Koo Govender, CEO of Publicis Groupe Africa, credits Andrea’s partnership with agency LePub as a driving force behind this integrated work, ‘It’s her ability to drive a digital-first marketing approach with clarity and courage that aligns stakeholders and creates the conditions for brand and agency partners to deliver breakthrough, integrated work. Andrea raises the standard of how modern marketing should be done in South Africa.’

Luca Gallerelli, Group CEO of TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, echoes the sentiment, ‘Andrea leads in a way that makes digital transformation practical and scalable. She is rigorous on strategy, but equally committed to the craft of digital ideas. That leadership elevates the client-agency relationship, accelerates the digital agenda, and sets a benchmark for the wider industry.’

Her impact reaches beyond her own brands. Andrea has championed emerging talent through HEINEKEN’s sponsorship of the Cannes Young Lions Digital category over the past two years and her team’s digital work helped HEINEKEN Beverages secure a strong share of honours at the Loeries 2025, where she ranked as the festival’s second-best marketer in her first year in the role. Coenie Grebe, ECD at Brand Halo, points to Klipdrift’s ‘Legends’ work as further proof of the digital-first thinking now spreading across the wider HEINEKEN Beverages portfolio.

Quaye embodies a marketer who not only champions a digital mindset in her own role, but actively drives that ethos industry-wide and this recognition celebrates the impact she has delivered in a remarkably short space of time.

PUBLICIS GROUPE AFRICA
https://publicisgroupeafrica.com/

Moving From Fear And Anxiety To Positive Action When Communicating Climate Change

Modern Marketing

September 7, 2026

Communicating Climate Change- Moving From Fear And Anxiety To Positive Action — Willem Steenkamp, Flow Communications.

Willem Steenkamp, senior writer and editor at Flow Communications writes that for too long, the dominant narrative about climate change has been one of apocalypse: collapsing ice shelves, parched earth, species extinctions, bleached coral, catastrophic storms and even the current northern hemisphere heatwaves, conjure up fears of irreversible environmental calamity.

While climate change science justifies the urgency, we are indeed hurtling headlong towards disastrous changes to the Earth’s climate, communicating the science has brought us to a psychological tipping point. Instead of galvanising us into action, relentless alarmism triggers climate anxiety, a chronic fear of environmental doom that leads to paralysis rather than participation.

As communicators, we must recognise that fear only motivates people up to a point. In the face of a threat as enormous (and abstract) as global warming, our natural response to fear is often to freeze as a way of self-protection; to give in to our feelings of powerlessness. When the problem feels insurmountable, individual actions, such as recycling or saving water, appear trivial and pointless.

Instead, to inspire meaningful change in the greater public, we must move beyond this doom-and-gloom approach and make the connection between urgency (the need to act) and agency (the ability to act).

To be sure, we must be straightforward about the realities of climate change; there is no denying or sugar-coating it. But we must pair this honesty with practical, hopeful choices. People will not change their behaviour because they are frightened, but they most likely will if they believe their actions matter.

This requires a shift from global abstractions to local realities. For example, for a resident of Cape Town, the threat of ‘day zero’ water shortages is far more motivating to be water-wise than the melting of distant glaciers. By focusing on local solutions, such as water resilience or urban greening, we make addressing the climate crisis tangible and relevant.

In South Africa, we have powerful stories to replace the narrative of catastrophe. Community-led carbon capture and storage initiatives in the Eastern Cape, for example, are not only addressing global warming, they are creating jobs and restoring ecosystems. In the Northern Cape, dozens of solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar power installations feed green electricity into our national grid, stimulating local employment and driving clean energy uptake by industrial users such as mines and factories throughout South Africa.

When we highlight successes such as these, we demonstrate that a sustainable future is not just necessary, it is desirable and possible.

As communicators, we also have to ditch technical jargon, which creates a barrier between experts and the public. Terms such as ‘anthropogenic’, ‘carbon sequestration’ or ‘mitigation strategies’ sound smart but probably mean little to many people. Rather, we should use more accessible language that is easy to grasp and culturally relevant to the audience. Use words like ‘we’ and ‘our’, emphasising our sense of collective responsibility.

In a similar vein, we must move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to how we say things to various audiences: a small-scale farmer’s concerns about crop failure are inherently different from a business executive’s focus on ESG compliance, for instance. This is Communications 101, effective messaging always considers the audience first, and tailors the ‘ask’ to what is achievable for that audience.

Ultimately, our role is not to make the public more afraid, rather, it is to ensure that each of us feels like a protagonist in the story of environmental restoration, not a helpless witness to its collapse. Pairing credible information with local success stories and clear, actionable steps allows us to turn climate anxiety into climate action.

And when people believe that they can make a difference, they usually do.

FLOW COMMUNICATIONS
www.flowsa.com

Effie Awards South Africa 2026 Grand Jury Revealed

Modern Marketing

September 7, 2026

The Effie Awards remain the globally recognised benchmark for marketing effectiveness. Effie Awards South Africa has announced the senior panel of industry leaders who will serve on the 2026 Grand Jury, tasked with adjudicating the programme’s highest honour, the coveted Grand Effie.

The Grand Effie recognises the campaign that best demonstrates effectiveness at its highest level, where clear strategic thinking, powerful creative work and measurable results come together. The Grand Effie is not guaranteed each year and is awarded only when a case meets the exceptional standard required.

The 2026 Grand Jury will meet in person on Thursday, 10 September 2026, to review qualifying Gold-winning cases and determine whether any campaign stands above the rest as the year’s most effective work.

‘The Grand Jury represents one of the most senior and considered moments in the Effie process,’ said Gillian Rightford, ACA Executive Director for Effie South Africa. ‘This panel is drawn from the highest levels of client and agency leadership, bringing together deep experience across marketing, strategy, creativity, media and business. Their role is to look beyond the award level already achieved and determine whether a case truly represents effectiveness at its peak. That requires judgement, rigour and a clear understanding of how marketing creates measurable value.’

The 2026 Grand Jury will be co-chaired by Refilwe Maluleke, Executive Head of Marketing at Discovery Health, and Ahmed Tilly, Creative Consultant at Number 10 | A Creative Consultancy.

The 2026 Effie South Africa Grand Jury:

– Refilwe Maluleke, Executive Head of Marketing, Discovery Health
– Ahmed Tilly, Creative Consultant, Number 10 | A Creative Consultancy
– Bridget Harpur, Head of Marketing, Volkswagen Group Africa
– Carl Willoughby, Chief Creative Officer, TBWA\Hunt Lascaris
– Gugu Mthembu, Chief Marketing Officer, Telkom
– Kagiso Musi, Chief Executive Officer, WPP Media
– Laurent Marty, Chief Strategy Officer, Joe Public
– Neo Makhele, Chief Strategy Officer, Ogilvy
– Roanna Williams, Chief Creative Officer, Boundless
– Robyn Lewis, General Manager: MTN Brand, MTN Group
– Tebogo Motsepe, Executive Head: Marketing Strategy, Nedbank
– Thabang Skwambane, Chief Executive Officer, Nahana
– Vaughan Croeser, Vice President: Marketing, South African Breweries

Winners of the 2026 Effie Awards South Africa programme, including the Grand Effie should one be awarded, will be announced at the Effie Awards South Africa Gala on Tuesday, 20 October 2026.

Effie Awards South Africa is hosted by the Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA) and sponsored by Nedbank, South African Breweries (AB InBev), Unilever, Heineken Beverages, Emeris, IAS, Eat Big Fish, Investec, Boundless and Motion Ads.

EFFIE AWARDS
www.effieawards.co.za

Nedbank IMC Announces Musical Collaboration

Modern Marketing

September 5, 2026

Nedbank IMC Announces Musical Collaboration — Siya Metane, SlikourOnLife.

Rather than simply talking about music’s role in marketing, SlikourOnLife will demonstrate it. The Nedbank IMC has announced a new collaboration with Siya Metane, widely known as Slikour, Group CEO and Founder of SlikourOnLife, for its 2026 conference taking place on Thursday, 17 September 2026 at Mosaïek Teatro in Johannesburg or online.

Throughout rehearsal day on 16 September and the conference itself on 17 September, the SlikourOnLife team will capture vox pops, soundbites and voices from speakers and delegates and use them to build an original conference track in real time.

The project is designed as a live test of a broader marketing idea that music can operate not only as entertainment, but as media, culture and a commercially meaningful platform for brands. The track will be developed from a studio space inside the main auditorium during the day, with MC Donovan Goliath introducing the experiment in his opening and checking in with Metane as it develops.

The completed song will then be revealed live as the final moment of the conference, with Metane joining Goliath on stage for The Conference Song: Revealed Live.

The collaboration reflects SlikourOnLife’s broader proposition around music, culture and commercial value. The platform has built its business around helping brands and creators connect more credibly with audiences through African music, content, distribution and cultural participation.

For the Nedbank IMC, the experiment also puts Marketing is Business® into practice, testing what happens when content born inside a major marketing platform is turned into a piece of music and distributed beyond the conference itself.

‘Siya and SlikourOnLife are not coming to tell marketers that music can create cultural and commercial value. They are going to demonstrate it, live,’ said Dale Hefer, CEO of the Nedbank IMC.

Metane has built a career across music, media and entrepreneurship. Best known initially through his work in South African hip-hop, he went on to build SlikourOnLife into a media and cultural platform connecting artists, audiences and brands.

His role at the Nedbank IMC will extend beyond the live song creation, with SlikourOnLife also creating content from the day and engaging with selected speakers, marketers and delegates.

The finished track will be shared across all major music distribution platforms, including Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music, as well as the SlikourOnLife and Nedbank IMC platforms after the conference. This will extend the experiment beyond the event itself, allowing its performance to be measured through streams, shares, saves, reach and other audience engagement.

The collaboration forms part of the Nedbank IMC 2026 theme, Shift Happens™. Are You Ready?, and its broader focus on how marketing is changing across technology, culture, creativity and business.

The Nedbank IMC 2026 takes place on Thursday, 17 September 2026 at Mosaïek Teatro in Johannesburg or online.

Tickets are available here.

Nedbank IMC
www.imcconference.com

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